THINK Finalist Envisions One Membership Portal for Multiple CUs

Andrée Kirk, online service administrator at the 30,000-member, $800 million San Francisco Federal Credit Union looks forward to a time when credit unions all over the country might be able to use the same Web portal to recruit and sign up new members.

Kirk said the kernel of the idea for the new portal arose as she and two colleagues at the credit union were reviewing the impact of Bank Transfer Day and thinking of ways that impact could be expanded.

She denied having the idea entirely only her own and recognized the two executives, CEO Steven Stapp and Senior Vice President for Strategic Planning Mark Michaels, for the help in moving the idea forward.

In Kirk's idea, credit unions would pay a nominal fee to participate to help cover costs, but would be able to submit videos about their credit union to help introduce them to non-members and be able to generate and take membership applications from the portal site. Non-members would be able to find out what credit unions might be available to them by a ZIP code other geographic based search tool as well, she said.

Kirk acknowledged that there were lots of details about the site which would remain to be considered and resolved, such as how to handle the identification requirements in a new credit union membership, but she maintained that those problems could be worked out over time.

“The idea was to make it easy as possible for consumers all over the nation to find out about and join their available credit unions,” Kirk said.

The winner of the $10,000 top prize will be announced at the THINK conference April 29-May 2 in Chicago.